THE CUP AND THE LIP.
Her real name was Jane Green. But Jane Green would never do for the play-bill; so the manager, exercising his peculiar and traditional prerogative, had rechristened the young lady for the histrionic world, and she appeared as "Aurora Tinsel." A poor, almost friendless girl, she had left the Atlantic States with an aunt who had been the wife of the "property man" in the theatre. Soon after the aunt died, and Jane had gladly accepted the offer of Miss De Montague to live with her, and, by helping that lady with her dresses, to render an equivalent for her society and protection.
Harding was a wise man in his generation, foolish as in some respects he may appear. We offer no explanation of his swift and unreasoning infatuation, because it is just such men who do just such rash and impulsive things. But he was sagacious enough to know that a man who really wants a woman is less likely to get her by being too quick than even by being too slow. Women who are interested always maintain the contrary; but this is because they want to bag their game instantly, whether they mean to throw it away afterward or not. The sex are not apt, however, to err by over-rating the value of what they get too easily, and this Harding was philosopher enough to know.
Hence, while he again sought Miss Tinsel twice before his departure, and while his admiration, although respectful, was not concealed, he did not go so far as to ask the girl to become his wife. It appeared that after the run of the current spectacle at the theatre a "great tragedian" was to play an engagement there, and the opportunity was to be taken for the ballet and pantomime troupe to make a tour of the mines. Miss De Montague was to go as a chief attraction, and Miss Tinsel was to go also, and among the places they were to visit was Bullion Flat.
These plans left open a space of three months, during which Harding could think of what he was at, and Miss Tinsel could think of what he meant, and several other persons who were interested could make up their minds what to do.
The first step taken by Harding on his return was highly confirmatory, in the judgment of the Flat, of the opinion expressed by Jack Storm some time before. A contract was made with a builder, and close by the tent on the knoll there speedily arose a cottage of fair proportions, which was evidently meant to supersede the humbler structure which for a year had formed Harding's home. No one doubted his ability prudently to incur such an outlay. He had been saving to parsimony, and he had been prosperous. But why, when a tent had so long sufficed to him, and when he so disliked to part with money, he should go to so needless an expense, was so obscure that to accept Jack Storm's solution impugning Harding's sanity was the easiest and consequently the most popular way of solving the enigma.
The cottage was built notwithstanding, and it was soon the subject of general remark that Harding was becoming more genial and "sociable" than before. He astonished Judge Carboy and Jim Blair by asking them to drink one night at the "Bella Union." He smiled affably and passed the time of day with Jack Storm and his other companions when they met to begin work on the claim for the day. He ordered champagne for the crowd on the evening when a green tree was lashed to the rooftree of his cottage on the knoll; and at last he raised wonder and surprise to their perihelion by actually giving a housewarming.
"I know'd it all along," affirmed Judge Carboy that night to his familiars. They were taking a cocktail at the "Bella Union" by way of preface to "bucking" against Mr. Copperas's bank—"I know'd it all along. He's got a wife out East, and she's a comin' out to jine him in the new house."
"Is that the 'suthin' you talked of that he was ashamed of, Judge?" laughed Jim Blair. "It looks like it, for sartin he never said nothin' about her."
"A man may git married," retorted the Judge with judicial acumen, "and yit do suthin' else to be ashamed of, mayn't he? There's been murderers and horse thieves stretched afore now who had wives, hain't there? And the last chap the boys hung to a flume up to Redwood, he had three wives, didn't he? And they all come to the funeral." And with this triumphant vindication of his position the Judge sternly deposited half a paper of fine-cut in his mouth and started for the luxurious apartment of Mr. Copperas.
Next morning Bullion Flat was in a flurry of excitement and pleasurable anticipation. The "Grand Cosmopolitan Burlesque, Ballet, and Spectacle Troupe" had arrived, and were to play in the theatre attached to the "Bella Union." It was not, however, until the succeeding afternoon that Chester Harding called upon Miss Tinsel at the same hotel.
It was a good sign that that young lady crimsoned at the first sight of him; what she first said was another:
"You have not been in a hurry," she pouted, "to come and see me."
"I supposed you would be very busy," said he smiling, and devouring her with his eyes. "Were you so anxious to have me come?"
"Anxious?" she repeated; and then added, illogically, "I supposed you would please yourself."
He nodded. "And how do you like Bullion Flat?"
"I think it ever so pretty—only I don't like the earth all torn up, and such ugly holes and scars."
"We have to get at the gold, you know," he explained, "even at such a cost. But the hilltops, anyhow, are spared."
She looked through a window and pointed at the most picturesque eminence in the neighborhood—the knoll. "That is your house?" she observed shyly.
"Yes. Do you like it?"
"I think it lovely—situation and all."
"And how did you know it was mine?"
"Oh," she said, laughing, "we show-folks see a great many people—besides being seen by them—and I've heard a lot about you."
Harding's face darkened a little. "Then you've heard that I'm not much liked?"
"I've heard that some say so. But what of that? Miss De Montague says she wouldn't give a fig for a man everybody speaks well of—and she quoted something from a comedy—the 'School for Scandal.'"
"Will you tell me what people say?" he inquired curiously.
"Oh, that you are gloomy, reserved, and live all alone, and that you are—are not extravagant, and that you haven't had a very happy life."
"That last at least, if true, is a misfortune rather than a fault."
"It's all misfortune, ain't it?" said the girl sagely. "People don't make themselves. There's Mr. Bellario now. He thinks nature really meant him for a great warrior—somebody like Napoleon, you know. And instead of that he's—well, he calls himself a professional gentleman, but the boys call him a tumbler. I suppose it would be much grander to kill people than to jump through 'vampire traps'; but you see he didn't get his choice—any more than I did."
"Then you didn't want to go on the stage?"
"No, indeed. It was just for bread. Aunty was a 'second old woman'—and they got me in for 'utility,' as they call it. There was no one to care for me, and I was glad to earn an honest living; but like it! Never!"
"You say there was no one to care for you?" said Harding gently. "Had you no friends—no parents?"
Jane reddened painfully, and the sad look came quickly into her face. "My mother is dead, you see," she replied, with hesitancy, "and—and—I'd rather not speak of this any more, please."
"Surely," he exclaimed hastily, "I've no right to catechize you. Pray forgive my asking at all. I ought to have been more careful. I know what trouble is, and how to feel for those who suffer."
She looked at him earnestly. "You have suffered yourself, then—they were right when they said yours had not been a happy life?"
"I have no right to whine—but happy—no, far from it."
Jane's lovely face took on its softest and tenderest expression.
"They said that lately you have been happier—gayer than ever before—and that people liked you—oh, ever so much better than they used to. Why is it that people like those the best who seem to need help and sympathy the least?"
Jane leaned from the window as she spoke and toyed with some running vine that clambered to the casement. The grace and beauty of her figure were made conspicuous by the movement, and Harding paused a moment before he replied:
"People like to be cheerful, I suppose, and people like others to be like themselves, I know. It is true that I have been unhappy—that my life has been morose and solitary. How much this has been my own fault and how much that of others, need not be said. But it is also true that of late I have been far happier. Shall I tell you why?"
His voice was deep and earnest, and something in his eyes made the girl crimson again, and turn her own to the distant hills.
"If you please," she faltered, in her low, musical contralto.
"Shall I tell you too why I have built that cottage you are looking at?" he went on with increasing earnestness. "It is because it has been my hope, my prayer, that this sad, lonely life of mine was nearly over. It is because I have believed that after much pain, and doubt, and bitterness my trust in men might be brought back through my love for a woman. The cottage—it is for you, Jane. I love you, Jane. Do you hear me? From the moment I saw you, I loved you. I resolved to ask you to marry me. Jane, will you do so?"
While he spoke the color had been fading steadily from her face, and when he stopped the girl was ashy pale. He looked at her anxiously and impatiently.
"I—I—am—so sorry," she muttered at last, as if each word were a separate pain.
"Sorry? God! Why?" Then with swift suspicion, "Jane, do you care for—are you engaged to some one?"
She shook her head mournfully.
"Do you see that sun going down over the hills?" She turned her beautiful eyes full upon Harding as she spoke, with a look of ineffable tenderness and sorrow. "Well, you must let what you have said go down with that sun, and never think of it—never speak of it again."
It was Harding's turn to blanch now, and the blood retreated from his swarthy cheeks until they looked almost ghastly.
"Why?" and his voice came involuntarily, almost in a whisper.
"Do not ask me—have pity—do not ask me."
"I must ask you," he cried impetuously, "but yet I need not perhaps. You care for no one else? Then it must be that you do not, you cannot, care for me. Is that it, Jane?"
"That is not it."
"Not it!" he cried joyfully. "Then you do care for me a little—just a little, Jane?—a little which is to grow into a great deal by and by! Oh, child, child, think how wretched I have been all these years! Think how I have waited and waited. I lived for twelve long months, Jane, alone, without a soul, without even a dog, in a tent on that knoll; and so hungry, Jane—so hungry for sympathy, for love. It comes to me at last, dear Jane, what I have longed for and begged for so long. Don't, don't—as you hope for mercy, don't take it away again!"
"You are good," she said softly, "whatever they may say. It is good and noble of you. Why should I tell you lies? I do like you very much, for all," looking down with a faint blush, "we have met and known each other so little. But all the same, it cannot be."
"Cannot again," he cried impatiently. "Once more, I ask you, will you tell me why not?"
She looked at him half frightened, for there was something of mastery in his tone; then, standing erect, and with a positiveness as strong as his own, she answered, "Because I should disgrace you."
"Because you are on the stage!" he exclaimed disdainfully. "Is that it?"
"That is something," returned Jane humbly, "but perhaps not much. I am hardly important enough to be worth even that sort of reproach. And besides the people of California are too liberal to apply it. I know I am only a ballet dancer"—and the poor girl tried to smile here—"and a pretty bad one at that. But I work hard for an honest living, and no one can say I have ever disgraced myself."
"Then how can you disgrace me?"
"I have begged you not to ask me."
"I must!" cried Harding passionately; "and I have the right to do so. Would you have me take your cool 'no' when you care for no one else and do care for me, and to go my way satisfied? I can't—I won't!"
"You will be sorry," said Jane pitifully.
"Let me be. Anything rather than the doubt. Give me the truth."
"Well then." She turned her back now: and looked from the window with her grave, sad face, and spoke in a dull, measured way, like the swinging of a pendulum. "I am a convict's daughter. My father is in the State prison of New York at Auburn."
"For what crime?"
"Murder. It was in the first degree. The Governor commuted it to imprisonment for life. There were extenuating circumstances. I went down on my knees and prayed that he might be saved from the gallows."
"And his victim?"
"Was his wife—my mother."